584 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



The terms of relationship used in different parts of the world 

 may be divided, according to the author just quoted, into two 

 great classes, the classificatory and descriptive, — the latter being 

 employed by us. It is the classificatory system which so strongly 

 leads to the belief, that communal and other extremely loose 

 forms of marriage were originally universal. But as far as I can 

 see, there is no necessity on this ground for believing in abso- 

 lutely promiscuous intercourse; and I am glad to find that this 

 is Sir J. Lubbock's view. Men and women, like many of the 

 lower animals, might formerly have entered into strict though 

 temporary unions for each birth, and in this case nearly as much 

 confusion would have arisen in the terms of relationship, as in 

 the case of promiscuous intercourse. As far as sexual selection 

 is concerned, all that is required is that choice should be exerted 

 before the parents unite, and it signifies little whether the unions 

 last for life or only for a season. 



Besides the evidence derived from the terms of relationship, 

 other lines of reasoning indicate the former wide prevalence of 

 communal marriage. Sir J. Lubbock accounts* for the strange 

 and widely-extended habit of exogamy — that is, the men of one 

 tribe taking wives from a distinct tribe, — by communism having 

 been the original form of intercourse; so that a man never ob- 

 tained a wife for himself unless he captured her from a neigh- 

 boring and hostile tribe, and then she would naturally have be- 

 come his sole and valuable property. Thus the practice of captur- 

 ing wives might have arisen; and from the honor so gained it 

 might ultimately have become the universal habit. According 

 to Sir J. Lubbock,'= we can also thus understand "the necessity 

 "of expiation for marriage as an infringement of tribal rites, 

 "since, according to old ideas, a man had no right to appropriate 

 "to himself that which belonged to the whole tribe." Sir J. Lub- 

 bock further gives a curious body of facts showing that in old 

 times high honor was bestowed on women who were utterly licen- 

 tious; and this, as he explains, is intelligible, if we admit that 

 promiscuous intercourse was the aboriginal, and therefore long 

 revered custom of the tribe.' 



Although the manner of development of the marriage-tie is an 

 obscure subject, as we may infer from the divergent opinions on 

 several points between the three authors who have studied it 

 most closely, namely, Mr. Morgan, Mr. M'Lennan, and Sir J. 

 Lubbock, yet from the foregoing and several other lines of evi- 



' Address to British Association 'On the Social and Religious Con- 

 dition of the Lower Races of Man,' 1S70, p. 20. 



' 'Origin of Civilization,' 1870, p. 86. In the several works above 

 quoted, there will be found copious evidence on relationship through 

 the females alone, or with the tribe alone. 



